Scaling of B2B companies

Accedo is going on its 12th year since inception, and we have transformed our business many times to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving market place. We’ve been fortunate to be active in a market which has shown long and consistent growth, so the challenges we have faced have been centered around creating an attractive offering and the scaling of the company. Our product and service strategy is a separate topic, but I’d like to touch upon my views on how to build and scale a successful B2B company.

A B2C company is attractive since it offers the possibility of virtually endless scalability if the service is attractive enough. For electronic products, margins can potentially be very high since most of the cost base is fixed. For Internet-based companies, it is now possible to deploy a globally scalable product with a handful of people. The main drawback is that the potential for success is much smaller. Great companies with great B2C services get stuck, failing to reach out to the target audience.

A B2B company, on the other hand, cannot grow without a substantial amount of people. Companies paying substantial license or service fees will require interaction with real people, combining expertise with customer centricity. This puts natural limits on growth, but also creates natural barriers of entry for existing vendors. Of course, the requirement to have people will also effectively be the barrier to scaling a B2B company well.

Accedo has always focused on being a B2B company, and we’re proud of the success of our customers. We have been successful at scaling Accedo to a global organization of more than 400 people delivering our offering to all parts of the world. Our guiding principles for scaling Accedo have been the following:

Be close to the customer.

A successful B2B company delivers both products and services

Trust local execution and market knowledge

Customers should be the inspiration for innovation

Specifically, Accedo has been successful based on an unparalleled customer-centricity. We acknowledge that the customer is the reason we’re in business and we adapt, with agility, to their requirements, rather than seeing only short term gains. Opportunities to learn and grow with customers are important for our ability to continue to succeed. With 15 offices around the world, we have followed this scaling strategy for years and will continue to grow the company with close attention to customer requirements.